Palins jockey with monkey for attention at Hollywood media party

So Sarah and Todd and a monkey show up at the Beverly Hilton for a Hollywood party.... OK, OK. So you know immediately we're talking about the Palins of Wasilla -- the half-term, former first family of Alaska, but the rest of this is no joke.

One cannot make this stuff up -- no, one cannot. It's as real as reality TV, which Todd and Sarah were at the L.A. media party to promote.

"It will go down as one of Sarah Palin's more challenging press and photo ops," wrote the Post's Lisa de Moraes. "Not because the lamestreamers oogled and/or snickered — she's used to that. Yet it's the first time, we think, that she competed for press attention with a capuchin monkey."

That would be an actual capuchin monkey, not Todd. The monkey's name was "Crystal." She was wearing a diaper and what appears in photos to be a blue jumpsuit. Palin was wearing a short-brown wrap dress and the ubiquitous sunglasses.

De Moraes reported the former governor "was a knockout, by all press accounts ... Critics marveled at her Hollyweird tan, and the wrap-around glasses she never took off — the jury's still out as to whether they were Oakleys or something more 'Cito Gaston-ish', as one critic insisted.

Palin also wore an American flag bracelet. And critics seemed to love the black platform peekaboo gladiator boots — one called them 'bondage gear', in a good way — she was wearing. Amber Dowling, the critic from TV Guide Canada — who, yes, asked Palin who she was wearing on her feet — reported that she responded: 'I don't know — they're on consignment from somewhere.'"

Ah yes, the "platform peekaboo gladiator boots...." That would be the 49th state's former governor.

Anyway, de Moraes went on about Sarah's hair and appearance in perfect, Hollywood, gossip-column style. No word on what Todd was wearing, although it does appear from photographs that he was at least dressed.

Read the full recap, including Palin's "adorable coyness" about her plans for the upcoming 2012 Republican National Convention, here.